


Degrees of Innocence

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s02e10 Noël, Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-05-01
Updated: 2003-05-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 06:25:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15113654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: Sam visits Josh on Christmas Eve.





	Degrees of Innocence

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

**Degrees of Innocence**  
**by:** Kasey

**Character(s):** Josh, Sam  
**Category(s):** POST-EP: Noel, Friendship  
**Rating:** TEEN  
**Disclaimer:** Don't own them, go figure, just a strange little unbetaed fic that comes at the end of a long day.  
**Summary:** Sam visits Josh on Christmas Eve.  


By the time Josh got to his apartment after his long evening at the hospital and his even longer day with Dr. Keyworth, he was beyond the "I need more therapy" stage. Instead he was to his overly analitical frame of mind, which was always dangerous - he didn't come upon it often, but when he did, a sort of strange philosophical madness always ensued, a dark sort of deep questioning with no acceptable answers. 

He'd been so distracted by his thoughts that he hadn't noticed the SUV sitting in front of his building. But as he walked up the steps, he heard the door close. He spun to find the source of the noise and saw Sam walking around the front of the vehicle. "What are you doing here?" 

"Waiting for you," Sam answered simply. 

"You waited around for me?" he asked, just as increduous as he had been to find Leo in the lobby. 

"Yeah - it has a good heater," Sam responded, nodding a little toward the SUV. 

"So at least that means you won't have hypothermia." 

"Yeah." 

"Why'd you wait around for me?" 

"How'd it go?" 

"It went-..." He tried to find an acceptable adjective. 'Fine' seemed so...inappropriate. "It went," he finally answered. 

Sam nodded. "So can you tell me now how you really cut your hand?" 

Josh sighed. "Can we do this...inside? It's just that I'm really tired and would like to at least sit down..." 

"Yeah." Sam followed Josh to his apartment, where he immediately noticed the window. "What happened?" Josh simply shrugged and held up his freshly-bandaged hand. "That's how you-" 

"Yeah." 

Sam's mind raced for a few minutes, wondering what on earth he could say. "...Is it gonna be okay?" 

"Doctor said it would be, and the window's getting replaced first thing after the holidays." 

"Are you?" 

"No, I've still got my job for reasons passing understanding...'cept that Leo can be really nice sometimes." He got a far-away look. "It's not surprising Dad liked him, he's...at least tonight he wasn't all gruff and...something about guys falling in holes..." 

"I didn't mean were you gonna be replaced, I meant are you gonna be okay?" 

"What?" It threw Josh for a moment. "Yeah, Sam, I'll be fine. Dr. Keyworth's gonna refer me to yet another therapist...that makes a third therapist I've had...wonder if he'll be named Stanley, too, because so far both of the others have been. Maybe that's a requisite or something for being a therapist - using the name Stanley." 

"I doubt it's a pseudonym." 

"Could be." 

"Why?" 

"Who knows? Maybe they think that way it'll be more comforting, a sense of familiarity - 'hey, this guy's just like the other guy I used to talk to, they have the same name'..." 

"Josh." Sam was wary - this was looking too much like it would turn into another rant. "What are you talking about?" 

"...I dunno," he said in a voice that was a half-whisper, shrugging a little. "You want coffee?" 

"Okay." Sam pulled off his gloves and coat. 

"Your hands are...half-purple." 

"No they're not, it's fine." 

"I thought you said your car had a good heater." 

"It does." 

"How long were you waiting?" 

"Not long." 

"You're lying." 

"It was like...I dunno, a few hours - it's no big deal." 

"You waited a few hours in the freezing cold outside my apartment?" Josh paused a minute. "You're a good friend, Sam," he said quietly, the level of his voice somehow increasing the sincerity. Sam tried to hide it, but he couldn't help but grin - he tried so hard, and he'd been feelig so guilty for not having seen Josh's state until it was too late...the confirmation from Josh that he was, indeed, a good friend, was exactly what he'd needed. Josh smiled sadly - God, how he loved when Sam grinned. It was like a little kid at Christmas with lots of presents, this...big, thrilled grin, with his blue eyes lit up like all was great in his world at that particular moment. 

He couldn't remember the last time he'd smiled like that. He'd probably been-...well, it had been back when he'd still felt like a kid, so it would've been before Joanie... 

The last time he'd smiled that way, he'd been 5, and here was Sam, at 35, still seeing the world in a fundamentally Pollyanna way - people were good, the world was good, problems would work themselves out, everyone would be okay in the end. He was a good friend - that made everything okay. 

But Sam's grins were getting to be a little fewer and further between as he had to come to terms with adult reality more and more - terror and death and vindictive reporters and heartache and lonliness...Someday he probably wouldn't grin like that at all. 

Josh made the coffee and handed Sam the steaming mug, which the younger man accepted gratefully - he really was cold, and the frigid air seeping through the plastic on the window wasn't helping matters. "...It was from the...thing?" Sam asked. 

"Huh?" 

"When you were acting...strangely..." That right there was something, Josh thought. Sam wasn't calling him crazy, he was being careful on that point - he could tell from Sam's tone of voice. "...It was because of the...thing, with the..." Sam sort of pointed at his chest, at the spot he knew too well because he couldn't get the mental image out of his head, Josh holding that spot closed from his place in Toby's arms. 

"Yeah. Anytime I heard music I was, apparently, interpreting it as sirens, so there were flashbacks and...things..." 

"Oh." 

"Yeah." 

Of course Sam didn't have anything better to say - Josh didn't know what to say anymore, and he was the one who actually knew what was going on...well, he did now...so how could he expect someone else to know? Unless he explained it to-...no. Absolutely NOT. He wasn't about to start bogging down other people with all the crap...it was bad enough for him, let alone to start with everyone else... 

It was definitely something Sam wouldn't be able to grin over. And besides - he'd been through the shooting and whatever, so what good did it do to start rehashing the horror of it all? Except to know... 

"Sam?" 

"Yeah?" 

Josh looked down and played a little with the hem of his shirt. "Were you, um...were you scared?" 

Sam stared out the half-plastic-covered window for a long few seconds before his lips tightened a little at the corners in what could've been either a half-smile or a grimace. "Yeah," he answered quietly, his eyes sadder than Josh could remember seeing since Lisa had left. 

That was the look to be avoided - he had that look, Toby, Leo, CJ, the President...they all had that look, and he wished he could just somehow make Sam untouched by it all. He was supposed to keep that innocence, that grin...he needed it. 

But he was growing up, just like the rest of them, getting older and less innocent and more cynical. 

"Josh?" 

"Yeah?" 

"You're a good friend, too," Sam said quietly, and Josh, despite his mood, managed a little smile himself. 

He wasn't as good of a friend as Sam deserved, and he knew it...but as long as Sam kept that resiliency to be screwed over by a friend one day and trust them again the next...it was okay. Because he could get better and he could make it up to Sam for the fact that he himself really wasn't a great friend. 

He could get better. 


End file.
